Rat tale 1

Rats.  They have their own critter category.  They are one of the few creatures that I don’t necessarily consider a blessing in my life, especially when they invade my home. Ants can drive me crazy but I find ways to deal with them. Spiders are a way of life; even black widows offer me photo opportunities.  But no rats.  No, no, no rats. Not even adorable roof rats with their climbing ways and cute (when they’re outside) faces and round ears.

About five years ago, an empty field across the street from our home was subject to construction (see the Nature’s Essential Beatitudes link).  Of course, while the houses are lovely, I find them far too large for the lot they are on, and, what’s worse, they stirred up the rats…and the rats found my house.

We are not talking about the occasional October field mouse that comes calling and gets promptly dispatched.  We are talking about the full-invasion of the radical rat community.  Rats that are smarter than we are; rats that are voraciously destructive; rats everywhere.

A quiet moment in the house—you’ll hear the rats.  Turn off the lights—and the rats dash around, into the garbage can, through the kitchen, up to and even stealing my calcium chews.  I don’t like rats.  If I were to offer true confessions, I’ll have to admit I’m afraid of rats; at least I’m afraid of rats that invade my home.  I also am not a killer (at least not directly).

So my dear hubby became chief rat-eradicator.  He’s not afraid of rats.  We used traps, of course.  With my strong environmental stance, we would not resort to poison.  Poison poisons our world, not just the rats.  Hrumph.  Sometimes those with strong stances have to fall back and regroup.

Most rats met their match in the traps and succumbed easily to a quick snap.  So, slowly, we blocked up their entry points, snapped them in traps, and stopped feeding the birds to keep the rats at bay.  We got down to one rat.  One single, radical, destructive rat.  The smart rat we learned to hate.

We tried everything to entice that rat to leave or to fall into a trap.  We discovered his favorite foods (cereal) and covered brand new traps with cereal—six new traps under a mountain of cereal.  He ate the cereal and avoided the traps.  We had traps in corners, in cupboards, along baseboards, and never a single trap; no, we place multiple traps in each place.  No snap.

But Radical Rat had found his home and he let us know who the true owner was by gnawing and destroying everything he could get his large teeth into.  (Note that he has taken on a name and a homely presence.)  I was a nervous wreck—and Radical Rat knew it.  He’d hide in a cupboard.  Leonel would look in the cupboard—no rat.  I’d walk up to the same cupboard ten seconds later, and Radical Rat would take a flying leap at my face, drop to the floor, scurry away, and leave me with a palpitating heart and Leonel’s ears ringing from my scream. (Yes, I’m a rat sissy.)

Finally, the chief rat-eradicator convinced me that our only solution was to poison Radical Rat.  I angrily went to the store, purchased poison, and tossed it on top of a garage cabinet, unopened.  I went back 30 seconds later and the box was on the floor with a hole bitten in it.  Thirty seconds—how could Radical Rat manage this?!

He never touched that box of poison again.  He took one bite.  Nothing happened.  The poison sat there; Radical Rat tore up the house.

A month or so later we went on vacation.  When we came home after six days—who greeted us?  Radical Rat came out of hiding and stood in the doorway—he didn’t look very well. Maybe he missed us?

My husband had my nephew open the door, and instead of killing Radical Rat, he chased him out of the house and down the street (pause for a minute to get the full visual of that).  The chief rat-eradicator thought his nemesis, the most intelligent rat alive, deserved a second chance—somewhere, anywhere else.

We haven’t had a rat indoors since.  Could Radical Rat be protecting us from another invasion?  Rats are smart…very, very smart.

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